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It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!

So far I've kept almost nothing in repertoire. For me it doesn't seem worth it to trade valuable practice hours to keep beginner and intermediate repertoire alive. I always think that if I use that time for improving my abilities at the bench, it will be that much sooner that I can graduate to more complex and interesting music.

I do understand that my attitude sounds a bit like chasing after a moving target, and I guess it is to some extent. When I've talked to my teacher about it she has always said "well, if you still want to play it a year from now, you will be that much more skilled and can pick it back up that much quicker... but you can't pick up something you haven't started working on or don't have the skills for yet."

I do play a handful of jazz standards just because I enjoy playing them when I come home in the evening. But I don't consider them part of my training, except as an exercise in daily reading, and I don't keep any one of them going for very long.

Lots of room for different ways to handle this for every individual IMO.

Last summer I picked 5 pieces to "bring back from the dead". I came up with a schedule that involved concentrating on two at a time. All of the pieces where things I had "learned" before. The object was to go to a summer music camp with a bunch of pieces I could get help on. I followed the schedule for about three months.

Surprisingly, it worked. I did not memorize them, at least not all of them. There are passages in each that I have to memorize in order to play them, but I play from the music, which is a big plus at my age. Playing from memory is very frustrating for me, and what's the point in being frustrated about something that is supposed to be fun or relaxing or cathartic (fill in your favorite reason for playing).

When I started lessons again in August I stopped playing the 5 pieces, instead concentrating on new things. But this past weekend I got out two of the pieces and played through them. I made mistakes, of course, but I surprised myself again with how much I remembered.

So I think it is a long-term goal. Each time you relearn a piece it is a little easier. After a few iterations of bringing something back to playable condition I bet you could pick it up at any time and play it with little difficulty.

So I plan to pick the best and most enjoyable pieces that I have studied and bring them back from the dead occasionally. It is a lot of fun to just be able to sit down and play some old pieces that you enjoy.

Just to be complete, here are the 5 pieces from last summer:Bach Prelude and Fugue X from WTC#1Clementi Sonata Opus 7 #3 - first movementMendelssohn Song Without Words opus 53 #5Schubert Impromptu Opus 140 #2Khachaturian Toccata

I like the 20% time slice suggestion, offered in the book The Musician's Way.

20% on old material40% on new material20% on technique20% on sightreading, theory, musicianship

Whatever old pieces a person can maintain in that 20% is what is worth keeping. When using those slices, each individual practice session may vary greatly. For example, when a performance date is coming up, there isn't much time for starting anything new because the focus is polishing the performance pieces.

Like most things in music, it is just an idea. Others may have other ideas and suggestions. There is rarely a right or wrong answer. Each person can look at the suggestions, experiment, and find what works best for them.

I keep my repertoire manageable by limiting it to my favorites. The rest of the stuff I tend to forget but in a way, that's even better. This is because if I want to re-learn a tune, I will, but now I'll do it with newly updated melodies in my head and hopefully better playing skills and abilities.

It can be fun to re-discover a piece and update it from time to time. Even the pieces that I do keep in my repertoire get tweaked here and there on an ongoing basis so for me at least, not maintaining a huge playlist is no big deal.

I can lose a piece fairly quickly if I don't 'maintain' it but like I said, it can be more fun taking a new path each time. This way you don't create a trail!

I'm still working out what my repertoire is. But my pop/rock material isn't so hard to keep in mind. I have about 60 odd songs in my folder of lyrics with chords. I select songs that I think I can master and which might help me learn something new.

I work backwards and forwards through the book and start in the middle etc as the mood takes me. Things I struggle with I leave for a while and come back to waiting for when I've improved enough to play it. I've tossed out about a dozen or so that I decide against persevering with.

I've been blessed since childhood with an excellent memory for melody so don't have trouble remembering the 'tunes' and as pop songs they are pretty well known anyway.